Track list:
1 Writing Letters In the Rain, 06.06
2 Eventual Needs
3 Auf Wiedersehen, My Dear (05.27)
4 Entire Absence (Fever Temperatures)
5 Mirror Falls (8, 9, and 11)
6 Bed 4301, West Lucanin 44, 07.01-09.10
7 Uselessness Of the Caused

Release description:
All music, tapes, 4-track, Uher, field recordings, Sony Tapecorder, found sounds, Lexicon PCM 42, pipe reverb by Will Long

Cover is a hand-painted colorized photo by James Jenkins

Mastered by Stephan Mathieu

Inspired by the journals, letters, and photographs of James Jenkins, 1942-1943 from Luzon, Philippines

Package description:
2CD edition of 500 copies, vinyl edition of 350, 150 emerald vinyl, 150 ivory

Track list:
1 Great Circles
2 The Absence Of Atmosphere
3 Two Months Are Past, And More
4 Sinai
5 Geodesy
6 After Departures

Release description:
Being Below is a mini-album of short songs created with digital and analogue instruments, recorded in 2020. Written with a structure that reflects shifting states, overlooking the past and future as a split pathway with the present endlessly fluctuating between. The pangs of rumination. An exercise in loop-less writing.

Mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Schwebung, and designed by Rutger Zuydervelt.

Pressed in a limited edition of 150 crystal clear 12″ vinyl, 150 black 12″ vinyl in a reverse-board sleeve as a dual release from Past Inside the Present and Two Acorns. A CD edition in a reverse-board 4-panel package with glass-mastered CD is also available from Two Acorns.

Afterword:
Staring out, tense. Looking down isn’t so different than looking up, but it passes by faster. Contentment at the accomplishment that I’m here, and the fear that what I’ve always been looking for has passed by. Staring up and looking at the sky, wishing you were up here with me, here where you can see everything. Above, the surface drifts by, and the colors on the horizon in pale blues makes me calm. Then blue. Deep in pale blue.

Again, in the morning. Close your eyes. Repeating this, repeating that, then it changes. Try to stay focused, but you’ve already moved out of sight. You’re a million miles away, and farther. Waiting for night. Stars, always beyond. Now, it’s already tomorrow.

1  I
2 II


Release description:
Some records just barely nudge your consciousness, but they do so in such an intriguing manner that their tentativeness and ephemerality lure you in deeper than you expect. Such is the case with Overflow Pool by Mogador, a new project by Will Long. This prolific producer—who is best known for his profoundly meditative ambient music under the name Celer—favors the long-form, beatless approach to composition, as he lets his rigorously honed tones unspool with a gentle insistence.

Overflow Pool consists of three lengthy pieces full of lingering, aqueous chords that are spaced out by suspenseful lacunae. Each piece revolves around episodes of briskly struck piano chord clusters that are left to decay to near silence, for maximal contemplativeness. These are followed by a lower-keyed retort, as if to ground the listener and to keep her from getting overly optimistic from the preceding burst of Harold Budd-on-uppers tones. Similarities to Brian Eno’s Thursday Afternoon are also evident, as Mogador methodically doles out morsels of oceanic calm geared to align your chakras like some 21st-century Stephen Halpern LP. It sounds ideal for flotation tanks, deep-tissue massages, and general relaxation.

Long observes that Mogador differs from his Celer output “because it’s completely unprocessed. This is a pure room recording with no extra effects; only piano and reel-to-reel delay.” The Yokohama, Japan-based musician says that his primary aim with Overflow Pool “was to make something that doesn’t happen all the time—it’s so sparse, that it blends into the room. It happens so seldom that it’s easy to forget about. You just catch it here and there. That’s the feeling I wanted.” It’s a feeling that’s all too rare in modern music—peacefulness without sentimentality.

Track list:

1 Bleeds and swell blends
2 These dreams, how portentously gloomy
3 Natural deflections
4 Acrimonious, like fiddles

Release description:

Artist statement

A few years ago I took a road trip with my 80-year old uncle through parts of the American southwest. We drove to Moab, where the sunset turned the canyon walls orange in the early evening, and after midnight, passing puffy clouds still showed through the the navy blue sky. In the morning, the buttes seemed brilliant bleached in sunlight, and the view from above the canyon was completely silent save for the wind, and birds occasionally flying past. In the Needles district, the centuries-old petroglyphs were mixed with graffiti; spraypaint cans lying half-submerged rusted in the sand below. We drove through the back roads of the La Sal Mountains, and down across the windswept grey Colorado plateau.

Past the expanses of Monument Valley, on the outskirts of Kayenta, rainstorms loomed in the distance as teenage hitchhikers dotted the roadsides, along which were makeshift souvenir shops, alone like fireworks stands after a passed holiday. Climbing out of the desert, we passed through Aspen, through the ski resorts and celebrity mansions, where the average annual household income is $69,000, compared to $21,000 in Kayenta. The next day, our drive ended near Ouray, the fog rolling over the evergreen-lined roads.

Several years later, after leaving California, I put together a collection of tracks made with an electric piano and a wooden flute. Two tracks were copied onto two sun-baked cassette tapes I had found on the dashboard of a car, and the other two from a warped 12″ test pressing. Revisiting these pieces after living in Japan for several years, they instantly reminded me of the trip, and what I left behind in the United States. The tapes fluttered and stuck, drenched in hiss and grime. The record skipped, wavered, and dropped in and out. Yet with these imperfections, it completely reflected my memory of the places, and what they represented. There are sides to everything, whether it causes you to change or not.

– Will Long, 2015

アーティスト・ステートメント

数年前、８０歳になる叔父とアメリカ南西部を車で旅したことがあった。我々がドライブをしたモアブという場所では、夕方になると夕日が渓谷の壁をオレンジ色に染め、夜中を過ぎると、濃紺の夜空にふわふわの雲が現われては通り過ぎていった。朝になると、太陽にさらされたビュート（孤立丘）が輝いて見え、渓谷の上からの景色は、風と、時折飛んで行く鳥の音をのぞいては完全な静寂に包まれていた。ニードルズ地区にある、何世紀も前の岩面彫刻には落書きが入り混じっていて、錆びたスプレーペイントの缶が砂地に半分埋もれて残されていた。我々はラ・サル山脈の裏道をドライブして、吹きさらしの灰色のコロラド高原を超えて行った。

カエンタ郊外の広々としたモニュメントバレーを過ぎると、遠くのほうにぼんやりと暴風雨が見えた。沿道にはティーンエイジャーのヒッチハイカー達が点在し、簡易な作りの土産店が休日明けの花火の屋台のように寂しそうに並んでいた。砂漠を抜けると、我々はアスペンというスキーリゾートを通り過ぎた。セレブなマンションが立ち並ぶその辺りの一世帯の年収は69,000ドル、一方カエンタでは21,000ドルだ。

何年か後になってカリフォルニアを去ったあと、私は電子ピアノと木笛を使って一連の曲を制作した。その中の２曲が、車のダッシュボードの上で陽にあたって劣化したカセットテープの中にコピーされているのを私は発見した。そして残りの２曲は、歪んでしまったテストプレス用のレコードの中にあった。日本に何年か住んだ後でこれらの作品を再検討してみると、あの旅のこと、そして私がアメリカに置いてきたもののことがすぐさま思い起こされた。テープには歪みやひっかかりがあり、ノイズとホコリまみれだった。レコードには音飛びや音揺れがあり、音が大きくなったり小さくなったりした。けれどもこれらの不完全さは、それぞれの場所の私の思い出、そしてそれらが意味するものを見事に象徴していた。すべてのものには、両端がある。それが我々に変化を起こさせるものかどうかにかかわらず。

– Will Long, 2015

Press statement

Inspired by the American Southwest, “How could you believe me when I told you that I loved you when you know I’ve been a liar all my life” is the new album by American musician Celer, aka Will Long, now living in Japan. Sourced from an electric piano and wooden flute, tape loops were copied to sun-baked cassette tapes, and a warped vinyl tester, using the most basic format-inherent effects. Based on an idea of primitive Americana, it can be seen as a mediation on the different sides of music and cultural perception, or a reflection of inherent imperfections.

 

Track list:

1 Simon Scott – Water Shadow
2 A Winged Victory For the Sullen – Ti Prego Memory Man
3 Celer – Nothing So Mystical
4 Black Swan – Passings, Heartbreak
5 Jim Haynes – This is Radio Sweden
6 EN – White
7 Pjusk – Dorsk
8 Fieldhead – 37th
9 Noveller – Bright Clouds Bloom

Release description:
SMM: Opiate is the second release in Ghostly’s SMM series, which is an ongoing exploration of the evocative possibilities of sound, with a focus on classical minimalism, electronic and drone composition, film soundtracks, and fragile imaginary landscapes. Opiate is the follow-up to 2011’s SMM: Context, and as with that record, it’s a carefully chosen selection of music, compiled over some two years from around the world.

The record opens with Simon Scott’s “Water Shadow,” a luxuriant piece of beatless ambience that’s like a wash of warm water or the first touch of the summer sun on your face after a long, cold winter. It’s a warmth that doesn’t last, though — “Ti Prego Memory Man,” by A Winged Victory for the Sullen, is no less beautiful. It’s a stately, alpine beauty, its chilly sounds a harbinger of things to come. Celer’s “Nothing So Mystical” is more minimal still, while Black Swan’s “Passing Heartbreak” brings whispers of humanity, its sound coalescing out of an atmospheric whirl of vocal textures.

The wryly titled “This Is Radio Sweden,” by Jim Haynes, is all brooding background noise that’s shot through with what sounds like an old-fashioned telephone engaged tone, a track that seems shot through with connotations of absence and loss. EN’s “White” is both somber and somehow transportive, setting plucked chords from what sounds like a banjo over a glistening synth figure, while Pjusk’s “Dorsk” slows to a sort of stasis, with only the faintest of basslines to indicate any sign of life. Fieldhead’s “37th” is like a slow, mindful from such a reverie, and Noveller’s “Bright Cloud Blooms” brings the cycle to a close with another brief flush of precious warmth.

As a whole, the compilation seems to follow a narrative arc, descending through a series of stages into near-complete stillness, and then slowly ascending back to where it began. As a whole, the experience is certainly evocative of the opiated sensation evoked by the record’s title — but really, it’s a compilation that invites you to find your own meaning in it, or simply to appreciate the beauty of its music and escape the world for a while.

Track list:

Side A
1 Distant Misgivings

Side B
2 The Potential of the Unnecessary

Release description:
Launched in 2005, Celer is a project of Will Long, an American musician, educator, writer and photographer, living in Japan, who also curates the Two Acorns label. Initially a duo based in California with Danielle Baquet, Celer has continued as a solo project since 2009 and has released music on numerous esteemed labels such as Baskaru, Spekk, and/OAR, Infraction, Streamline and many more. In addition, Will has collaborated on projects with Miko, Hakobune, Machinefabriek, Jan and Romke Kleefstra, Matthieu Ruhlmann, Yui Onodera and Christoph Heemann.

A decade into his recording career, Celer arrives at the shores of the Los Angeles based label I, Absentee, for the remarkable new full-length, “Jima.” The album contains two pieces, each occupying an entire LP side, on one side plunging into the depths of the conscience, and the contrasting flip side a blissful crescendo. It stands as a jewel in the prolific career of Celer, showcasing an artist at the height of his craft. Meticulously assembled and packaged at the highest quality possible by both artist and label, it is presented as a meditation on existence and melancholy.

“Jima” arrives at I, Absentee as a limited edition LP, with the first 100 units on sea blue vinyl and the remaining 200 on milky clear vinyl. Limited edition of 300 copies worldwide.

Track list:
Side A
1 Circle Routes
2 (12.5.12) Making tea over a rocket launch broadcast
3 In plum and magenta
4 (12.21.12) On the Shinkansen leaving Kyoto
5 Tangent lines
6 (12.20.12) Back in Kawaramachi, Kyoto

Side B
7 Equal to moments of completion
8 (4.8.13) A morning
9 Wishes to prolong
10 (4.8.13) An evening
11 Attempts to make time pass differently

Release description:
Hill towns and empty mountains pass by, but the smoothness of the train blurs the view, and it’s easier than ever to fall asleep in the low morning sunlight coming in through the train’s windows. We’re sleeping, or staring out at the cities and landscapes; it’s easy to imagine the sound, and connect it with these events. There’s a contrast and connection between this reality and imagination. They’re separate, but happening simultaneously. On a walk through the crowded streets of Kyoto, or a half-asleep morning, what was it like? Later, what do you remember?

During a walk home one evening, I stopped on top of the street with a view over the train tracks, passed the intersection across from Mini Stop and the bakery, and went up the hill into the our neighborhood. There’s a particular sound when you step on the entrance grate by the doorway, and when opening the mailbox. Someday, I won’t be in these same places again, and for now, this is what they sound like. Even these minor moments are important when you look back on the memory, and then look out from this overlook, seeing the city lights blinking in the distance.

Sky Limits is available as a 12″ black vinyl LP with full color, uncoated board sleeve, black paper inner sleeve, postcard, and download card. Edition of 300.

 

Track list:
Side A
1 Blending Two Beams Of One Eternity / Soon To Waver / Wear At Expectation / Circumvolutions (Maoist Revolution From A Coffee Shop Patio) / A Deadweight, Doleful Dreamstate / All You See Is Red, But All You Feel Is Blue

Side B
1 A Common Recrimination (Lunch In Kathmandu) / Only Obstacles Are Capable Of Turning Love Into A Love Story / Animate Companionship / Vestiges Of An Inherent Melancholy

Release description:
Second vinyl LP from this formerly active American duo of Will Long and Danielle Baquet-Long, which also happens to be the second LP from Celer on Blackest Rainbow. Vestiges Of An Inherent Melancholy follows on from the recent pairing of releases on Basses Frequences and features 2 sides of unearthed recordings that were created between December 2006 and July 2008. These two sides find the duo creating some truly beautiful drone works with their use of an organic and electronic palette of instrumentation; cello, violin, pipe organ, electronics, tape, field recordings, samples, and mixing board. This really is a standout side from Celer, pulling together their variety
of sounds to make a heart breaking collage of sounds falling between beautiful dream tones and heavier dark moments. Vestiges Of An Inherent Melancholy again pushes Celer further to the front of modern minimal compostion, proving that they were one of the most interesting, consistently outstanding, and intriguing acts around in recent years, creating some of the finest and most beautiful, fragile drone records around. The full experience of a Celer release is complete with accompanying titled fragmented sections for the side long pieces, and striking cover photography by Danielle. Limited to 500 copies in thick old style tip-on hardback jackets with LPs pressed on 140 gram virgin vinyl.

Track list:
Side A
1 I’ve Thought Only of Empty Shadows / Embark, Hollow Heart / Adhered Irreverence / Empty Streets of Accurate Reasons / The Street Rain & Pain of the City Rests Under My Toenails / One Long Blast / Fine-Tuned Treetop / Functioning Voluptuary

Side B
2 A Mislaying of the Out-and-Out / Trespassing In Love’s Furrows / Umbrella Terms Protecting Puddles / Bony Hands and Hips Drawn / The Satisfied Disorder / Say A Prayer For Me Tonight / The Veins of My Days

Release description:
‘Dwell in Possibility’, is the debut vinyl LP by the formerly active American husband and wife duo Celer, and is also their first release for Blackest Rainbow. Consisting of 15 different sections sprayed across two sides of vinyl, with little if any distinctions, ‘Dwell in Possibility’ is arranged as a muted patchwork of keyless voices blinded by sunlight, hollow echoes from unlit interiors, and scrolls of unrolled piano tunes. Enclosed in empty shadows, with vague slides of unanswered prayers, these two sides etch a dateless form into weak ends, and pyrrhic dells. Everydays are left empty-handed, and enjoyed only then. Positions change, and rely only on your imagination to wake from this, to sleep, in hope to feel again. Full colour fold over pro printed covers featuring vintage photography. Limited to approx 400 copies.